R.H.F.P. Bekkers

A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy: Eight Mechanisms That Drive Charitable Giving

The authors present an overview of the academic literature on charitable giving based on a literature review of more than 500 articles. They structure their review around the central question of why people donate money to charitable organizations. They identify eight mechanisms as the most important forces that drive charitable giving: (a) awareness of need; (b) solicitation; (c) costs and benefits; (d) altruism; (e) reputation; (f) psychological benefits; (g) values; (h) efficacy. These mechanisms can provide a basic theoretical framework for future research explaining charitable giving.

Trust, accreditation, and philanthropy in the Netherlands.

Given the increasing numbers of scandals, the awareness among fund-raisers that the public’s trust is crucial for the nonprofit sector is growing. This study investigates the relationship between trust and charitable giving. Charitable organizations can increase the public’s trust by signaling their trustworthiness. The example of the Netherlands shows how a system of accreditation can be an instrument for signaling trustworthiness to the public. Donors aware of the accreditation system have more trust in charities than those who are not aware, and they give more money to charitable causes. Charitable organizations have only limited control over the public’s trust because it is also rooted in a general social trust in institutions and fellow citizens. It was shown that general social trust increases the amount people give to charitable causes, even more so when people know about the accreditation system. Finally, the conditions for introducing an accreditation system are discussed.

Traditional and Health-Related Philanthropy: The Role of Resources and Personality.

I study the relationships of resources and personality characteristics to charitable giving, postmortem organ donation, and blood donation in a nationwide sample of persons in households in the Netherlands. I find that specific personality characteristics are related to specific types of giving: agreeableness to blood donation, empathic concern to charitable giving, and prosocial value orientation to postmortem organ donation. I find that giving has a consistently stronger relation to human and social capital than to personality. Human capital increases giving; social capital increases giving only when it is approved by others. Effects of prosocial personality characteristics decline at higher levels of these characteristics. Effects of empathic concern, helpfulness, and social value orientations on generosity are mediated by verbal proficiency and church attendance.

From Games to Giving : Social Value Orientation Predicts Donations to Noble Causes

The central purpose of the present research is to examine the ability of social value orientation (i.e., prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientation), as measured with methods rooted in game theory (i.e., decomposed games), to predict real-life prosocial behavior. Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed that individual differences in social value orientation are predictive of various donations. Relative to individualists and competitors, prosocials reported to engage in a greater number of donations, especially donations to organizations aimed at helping the poor and the ill. Results are discussed in terms of theory and methodology regarding the individual differences in social value orientation, as well as in terms of societal implications for enhancing donations to noble causes.

Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving. Part two: gender, marital status, income, and wealth

This is the second of two articles in which we present a comprehensive review of the multidisciplinary academic literature on philanthropy. In this article, we identify the following predictors of charitable giving by individuals and/or households: gender, family composition and income. For each predictor, we discuss the evidence for the mechanisms that may explain why the predictor is correlated with giving. We conclude with a brief agenda for future research.

To give or not to give, that is the question : How methodology is destiny in dutch giving data

In research on giving, methodology is destiny. The volume of donations estimated from sample surveys strongly depends on the length of the questionnaire used to measure giving. By comparing two giving surveys from the Netherlands, the authors show that a short questionnaire on giving not only underestimates the volume of giving but also biases the effects of predictors of giving. Specifically, they find that a very short module leads to an underestimation of the effects of predictors of giving on the amount donated but an overestimation of their effects on the probability of charitable giving. Short survey modules may lead researchers to falsely reject or accept hypotheses on determinants of giving due to underreporting of donations.

Are Conservatives Less Likely to be Prosocial Than Liberals? From Games to Ideology, Political Preferences and Voting

Do political preferences reflect individual differences in interpersonal orientations? Are conservatives less other–regarding than liberals? On the basis of past theorising, we hypothesised that, relative to individuals with prosocial orientations, those with individualistic and competitive orientations should be more likely to endorse conservative political preferences and vote for conservative parties. This hypothesis was supported in three independent studies conducted in Italy (Studies 1 and 2) and the Netherlands (Study 3). Consistent with hypotheses, a cross–sectional study revealed that individualists and competitors endorsed stronger conservative political preferences than did prosocials; moreover, this effect was independent of the association between need for structure and conservative political preferences (Study 1). The predicted association of social value orientation and voting was observed in both a four–week (Study 2) and an eight–month (Study 3) longitudinal study. Taken together, the findings provide novel support for the claim that interpersonal orientations, as measured with experimental games rooted in game theory, are important to understanding differences in ideology at the societal level. Copyright

The Relationship Between Confidence in Charitable Organizations and Volunteering Revisited

Confidence in charitable organizations (charitable confidence) would seem to be an important prerequisite for philanthropic behavior. Previous research relying on cross-sectional data has suggested that volunteering promotes charitable confidence and vice versa. This research note, using new longitudinal panel data from the Netherlands, contradicts the suggestion generated by previous research. Volunteers indeed have more charitable confidence, but changes in one are not related to changes in the other. The authors identify generalized social trust and altruistic values as omitted variables that produce the previously observed relationship. The practical implication of this finding is that a decline in charitable confidence is unlikely to reduce volunteering. The theoretical implication is that volunteering is symbolic rather than instrumental.

A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy

The authors present an overview of the academic literature on charitable giving based on a literature review of more than 500 articles. They structure their review around the central question of why people donate money to charitable organizations. They identify eight mechanisms as the most important forces that drive charitable giving: (a) awareness of need; (b) solicitation; (c) costs and benefits; (d) altruism; (e) reputation; (f) psychological benefits; (g) values; (h) efficacy. These mechanisms can provide a basic theoretical framework for future research explaining charitable giving.

When and Why Matches Are More Effective Subsidies than Rebates

Abstract This paper replicates and refines the finding that subsidies for charitable contributions of a rebate type are less effective than matching subsidies. A survey based field experiment with health charities was conducted among a national sample representative of the Dutch population on key demographic characteristics. The greater effectiveness of matching subsidies found in laboratory experiments is replicated. Also some evidence is provided on why matches are more effective than rebates. Matches attract a larger pool of donors, in part because donors expect more people to make donations and “join in.” Matches also increase the amount contributed among the higher educated, higher income households and larger donors. Subsidies of either type do not decrease subsequent giving in a campaign for tsunami relief. The experiment could not test whether the greater effectiveness of a matching subsidy is due to a change in the donor’s attention to the benefits of a donation to the cause. This explanation should be tested in future research. The findings imply that a given budget available to subsidize charitable contributions can be used more effectively if the subsidy is framed in the form of a match than in the form of a rebate. Nonprofit organizations can use this insight in the design of fundraising campaigns. For governments the finding suggests that the effectiveness of current subsidies for charitable contributions can be enhanced by matching them rather than providing a deduction in the income tax, which works as a rebate.